MY  REMINISCENCES 


EZRA  CORNELL 


AX   ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE   CORNELL  UNIVERSITY 
ON     FOUNDER'S   DAY,   JANUARY    IITH,    189O 


ANDREW   DICKSON   WHITE,   LL.D.,  L.H.D. 

FIRST   PRESIDENT   OF   THE    UNIVERSITY 


any  person  can  find  instruction  in  any  stud 

—Ezra  Cornell. 


ITHACA,   N.    Y. 

BY   THE   UNIVERSITY 
1890 


MY  REMINISCENCES 


OF 


EZRA  CORNELL 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY 
ON    FOUNDER'S   DAY,  JANUARY   IITH,    1890 


ANDREW   DICKSON   WHITE,  LL.D.,  L.H.D. 

FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 


'  /  would  found  an  institution  luhere  any  person  can  find  instruction  in  any  study." 

— Ezra  Cornell. 


ITHACA,  N.  Y. 
PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 
x890  .     , 


Ll  ^ 


MY    REMINISCENCES    OF    EZRA   CORNELL. 


On  the  first  day  of  the  year  1864,  on  taking  my  seat  for 
the  first  time  in  the  State  Senate  at  Albany,  I  found  among  my 
associates  a  tall,  spare  man,  apparently  very  reserved  and  au- 
stere, and  soon  learned  his  name — Ezra  Cornell. 

Though  his  chair  was  near  mine,  there  was  at  first  little 
intercourse  between  us,  and  there  seemed  small  chance  of 
more.  He  was  steadily  occupied,  and  seemed  to  care  little  for 
making  new  acquaintances.  He  was,  perhaps,  the  oldest  man 
in  the  Senate  ;  I,  the  youngest  :  he  was  a  man  of  business  ;  I 
was  fresh  from  a  University  professorship  :  and,  upon  the  an- 
nouncement of  committees,  our  paths  seemed  separated  entire- 
ly, for  he  was  made  chairman  of  the  committee  on  Agricul- 
ture, while  to  me  fell  the  chairmanship  of  the  committee  on 
Education. 

And  yet  it  was  this  last  difference  which  drew  us  together ; 
for  among  the  first  things  referred  to  my  committee  was  a  bill 
to  incorporate  a  public  library  which  he  proposed  to  found  in 
Ithaca. 

On  reading  this  bill  I  was  struck,  not  merely  by  its  pro- 
vision for  a  gift  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  his  towns- 
men, but  even  more  by  a  certain  breadth  and  largeness  in  his 
way  of  making  it.  The  most  striking  sign  of  this  was  his 
mode  of  forming  a  board  of  trustees  ;  for,  instead  of  the  usual 
effort  to  tie  up  the  organization  forever  in  some  sect,  party,  or 
clique,  he  had  named  the  best  men  of  his  town — his  political 


*4  '    '•  •'"' " * •*    •  •••*•"•*• ' '"My  Reminiscences  of 

opponents  as  well  as  his  friends  ;  and  had  added  to  them  the 
pastors  of  all  the  principal  churches,  Catholic  and  Protestant. 

The  breadth  of  mind  revealed  by  this  provision,  even 
more  than  the  munificence  of  his  purpose,  drew  me  to  him  : 
we  met  several  times,  discussed  his  bill,  and  finally  I  reported 
it  substantially  as  introduced,  and  supported  it  until  it  became 
a  law. 

Our  next  relations  were  not,  at  first,  so  pleasant.  The 
great  Land  Grant  of  1862,  from  the  general  government  to  the 
State,  for  industrial  and  technical  education,  had  been  turned 
over,  at  a  previous  session  of  the  Legislature,  to  an  institution 
called  the  "People's  College,"  in  Schuyler  County  ;  but  the 
Agricultural  College,  twenty  miles  distant  from  it,  was  seeking 
to  take  away  from  it  a  portion  of  this  endowment  ;  and  among 
the  trustees  of  this  Agricultural  College  was  Mr.  Cornell,  who 
introduced  a  bill  to  divide  the  fund  between  the  two  institu- 
tions. 

On  this  I  at  once  took  ground  against  him,  declaring 
that  the  fund  ought  to  be  kept  together  at  some  one  institu- 
tion,— that  on  no  account  should  it  be  divided, — that  the 
policy  for  higher  education  in  the  State  of  New  York  should 
be  concentration, — and  that  we  had  already  suffered  sufficient- 
ly from  scattering  our  resources. 

Mr.  Cornell's  first  effort  was  to  have  his  bill  referred,  not 
to  my  committee,  but  to  his  :  here  I  resisted  him,  and,  as  a 
solution  of  the  difficulty,  it  was  finally  referred  to  a  joint  com- 
mittee made  up  of  both.  On  this  double-headed  committee  I 
deliberately  thwarted  his  purpose  throughout  the  entire  ses- 
sion, delaying  action  and  preventing  any  report  upon  his  bill. 

Most  men  would  have  been  vexed  by  this  ;  but  he  took  my 
course  with  calmness,  and  even  kindness.  He  never  expostu- 
lated, and  always  listened  attentively  to  my  arguments  against 
his  view  :  in  the  meantime  I  omitted  no  opportunity  to  make 
these  arguments  as  strong  as  possible,  and  especially  to  impress 
upon  him  the  importance  of  keeping  the  fund  together. 


Ezra   Cornell.  5 

After  the  close  of  the  session — during  the  following  sum- 
mer— as  it  had  become  evident  that  the  trustees  of  the  Peo- 
ple's College  had  no  intention  of  raising  the  additional  endow- 
ment and  providing  the  equipment  required  by  the  Act  which 
gave  them  the  land  grant,  there  was  great  danger  that  the 
whole  fund  might  be  lost  to  the  State  by  the  lapsing  of  the 
time  allowed  in  the  Congressional  Act  for  its  acceptance.  Just 
at  this  period  Mr.  Cornell  invited  me  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the 
State  Agricultural  Society,  of  which  he  was  the  president,  at 
Rochester  ;  and,  when  the  meeting  had  assembled,  he  quietly 
proposed  to  remove  the  difficulty  I  had  raised,  by  drawing  a 
new  bill  giving  the  State  Agricultural  College  half  of  the 
fund,  and  by  inserting  a  clause  requiring  the  College  to  pro- 
vide an  additional  sum  of  three  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
This  sum  he  pledged  himself  to  give,  and,  as  the  Comptroller 
of  the  State  had  estimated  the  value  of  the  land  grant  at  six 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  Mr.  Cornell  supposed  that  this 
would  obviate  my  objection,  since  the  fund  of  the  Agricultural 
College  would  thus  be  made  equal  to  the  whole  original  land- 
grant  fund  as  estimated,  which  would  be  equivalent  to  keeping 
the  whole  fund  together. 

The  entire  audience  applauded,  as  well  they  might :  it 
was  a  noble  proposal.  But,  much  to  the  disgust  of  the  meet- 
ing, I  persisted  in  my  refusal  to  sanction  any  bill  dividing  the 
fund,  declaring  myself  now  more  opposed  to  such  a  division 
than  ever  ;  but  saying  that  if  Mr.  Cornell  and  his  friends 
would  ask  for  the  whole  grant — keeping  it  together,  and  add- 
ing his  three  hundred  thousand  dollars,  as  proposed — I  would 
support  such  a  bill  with  all  my  might. 

I  was  led  to  make  this  proposal  by  a  course  of  circumstan- 
ces which  might,  perhaps,  be  called  "Providential."  For 
some  years,  ever  since  passing  a  year  of  my  college  life  in  a 
little  sectarian  college  in  the  western  part  of  the  State,  I  had 
been  dreaming  of  a  University,  had  looked  into  the  questions 
involved,  at  home  and  abroad,  had  approached  sundry  wealthy 


6  My  Reminiscences  of 

and  influential  men  on  the  subject,  but  had  obtained  no  en- 
couragement, until  this  strange  and  unexpected  combination 
of  circumstances — a  great  land  grant,  the  use  of  which  was  to 
be  determined  largely  by  the  committee  of  which  I  was  chair- 
man, and  this  noble  pledge  of  Mr.  Cornell. 

Yet  for  some  months  nothing  seemed  to  come  of  our  con- 
ference. At  the  assembling  of  the  Legislature  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  it  was  more  evident  than  ever  that  the  trustees  of  the 
People's  College  intended  to  do  nothing  :  during  the  previous 
session  they  had  promised  through  their  agents  to  supply  the 
endowment  required  by  their  charter  ;  but,  though  this  char- 
ter obliged  them,  as  a  condition  of  taking  the  grant,  to  have 
an  estate  of  two  hundred  acres,  buildings  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  two  hundred  students,  and  a  faculty  of  not  less  than 
six  professors,  with  a  sufficient  library  and  other  apparatus, 
yet,  when  our  committee  again  took  up  the  subject,  we  found 
that  hardly  the  faintest  pretense  of  complying  with  these  con- 
ditions had  been  made.  Moreover,  their  charter  required  that 
their  property  should  be  free  from  all  encumbrance  ;  and  yet 
the  so-called  donor  of  it,  Mr.  Charles  Cook,  could  not  be  in- 
duced to  cancel  a  small  mortgage  which  he  held  upon  it. 
Still  worse,  before  the  Legislature  had  been  in  session  many 
days,  it  was  found  that  his  agent  had  introduced  a  bill  to  re- 
lieve the  People's  College  of  all  conditions,  and  to  give  it, 
without  any  pledge  whatever,  the  whole  land  grant,  amount- 
ing to  very  nearly  a  million  of  acres. 

But  even  worse  than  this  was  another  difficulty.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  strong  lobby  sent  by  Mr.  Cook  to  Albany  in  be- 
half of  the  People's  College,  there  came  representatives  of 
nearly  all  the  smaller  denominational  colleges  in  the  State, — 
men  eminent  and  influential,  but  clamoring  for  a  division  of 
the  fund  among  their  various  institutions,  though  the  frag- 
ment which  would  have  fallen  to  each  would  not  have  sufficed 
even  to  endow  a  single  professorship. 

While  all  was  thus  uncertain,  and  the  fund  seemed  likely 


Ezra    Cornelt.  7 

to  be  utterly  frittered  away,  I  was,  one  day,  going  down  from 
the  State  Capitol,  when  Mr.  Cornell  joined  me  and  entered  in- 
to conversation.  He  was,  as  usual,  austere  and  reserved  in  ap- 
pearance, but  I  had  already  found  that  below  this  appearance 
there  was  a  warm  heart  and  noble  purpose  :  no  observant  asso- 
ciate could  fail  to  notice  that  the  only  measures  in  the  Legis- 
lature which  he  cared  for  were  those  proposing  some  substan- 
tial good  to  the  State  or  Nation,  and  that  political  wrangling 
and  partisan  jugglery  he  despised. 

On  this  occasion,  after  some  little  general!  talk,  he  quietly 
said,  ' '  I  have  about  half  a  million  dollars  more  than  my  family 
will  need  :  what  is  the  best  thing  I  can  do  with  it  for  the 
State?"  I  answered,  "Mr.  Cornell,  the  two  things  most 
worthy  of  aid  in  any  country  are  charity  and  education  ;  but, 
in  our  country,  the  charities  appeal  to  everybody  ;  any  one  can 
understand  the  importance  of  them,  and  the  worthy  poor  or 
unfortunate  are  sure  to  be  taken  care  of:  as  to  education,  the 
lower  grade  will  always  be  cared  for  in  the  public  schools  by 
the  State  ;  but  the  institutions  of  the  highest  grade,  without 
which  the  lower  can  never  be  thoroughly  good,  can  be  appre- 
ciated by  only  a  few  :  the  policy  of  our  State  is  to  leave  this 
part  of  the  system  to  individuals  :  it  seems  to  me,  then,  that 
if  you  have  half  a  million  to  give,  the  best  thing  you  can  do 
with  it  is  to  establish  or  strengthen  some  institution  for  higher 
instruction. ' '  I  then  went  on  to  show  him  the  need  of  a  larg- 
er institution  for  such  instruction  than  the  State  then  had  ; — 
that  such  a  college  or  university  worthy  of  the  State  would 
require  far  more  in  the  way  of  faculty  and  equipment  than 
most  men  supposed  ; — that  the  time  had  come  when  scientific 
and  technical  education  must  be  provided  for  in  such  an  insti- 
tution ; — and  that  literary  education  should  be  made  the  flower 
and  bloom  of  the  system  thus  embodied. 

He  listened  attentively,  but  said  little  :  the  matter  seemed 
to  end  there  ;  but  not  long  afterward  he  came  to  me  and  said, 
"I  agree  with  you  that  the  land-grant  fund  ought  to  be  kept 


8  My  Reminiscences  of 

together,  and  that  there  should  be  a  new  institution  fitted  to 
the  present  needs  of  the  State  and  the  country  :  I  am  ready  to 
pledge  to  such  an  institution  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  as 
an  addition  to  the  land-grant  endowment,  instead  of  three 
hundred  thousand  as  I  proposed  at  Rochester." 

As  may  well  be  imagined,  I  hailed  this  proposal  joyfully, 
and  the  sketch  of  a  bill  embodying  his  purpose  was  soon  made. 
But  here  I  wish  to  say,  that,  while  Mr.  Cornell  urged  Ithaca 
as  the  site  of  the  proposed  institution,  he  never  showed  any 
wish  to  give  his  own  name  to  it  :  the  suggestion  to  that  effect 
was  mine  :  he,  at  first,  doubted  the  policy  of  it ;  but,  on  my 
insisting  that  it  was  in  accordance  with  time-honored  Ameri- 
can usage,  as  shown  by  the  names  of  Harvard,  Yale,  Dart- 
mouth, Amherst,  Bowdoin,  Brown,  Williams,  and  the  like,  he 
yielded. 

We  now  held  frequent  conferences  as  to  the  leading  fea- 
tures of  the  institution  to  be  created  ;  in  these  I  was  more  and 
more  impressed  by  his  sagacity  and  largeness  of  view,  and, 
when  our  sketch  of  the  bill  was  fully  developed,  it  was  put  in- 
to shape  by  Charles  J.  Folger,  of  Geneva,  then  chairman  of 
the  Judiciary  committee  of  the  Senate,  afterwards  Chief  Judge 
of  the  Court  of  Appeals,  and  finally  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
of  the  United  States.  The  provision  forbidding  any  sectarian 
or  partisan  predominance  in  the  Board  of  Trustees  or  Faculty 
was  proposed  by  me,  heartily  acquiesced  in  by  Mr.  Cornell, 
and  put  into  shape  by  Judge  Folger.  The  State-scholarship 
feature  and  the  system  of  alumni  representation  on  the  Board 
of  Trustees  were  also  accepted  by  Mr.  Cornell  at  my  sugges- 
tion. 

I  refer  to  these  things  especially  because  they  show  one 
striking  characteristic  of  the  man,  namely,  his  willingness  to 
give  the  largest  measure  of  confidence  when  he  gave  any  con- 
fidence at  all,  and  his  readiness  to  be  advised  largely  by  others 
in  matters  which  he  felt  to  be  outside  his  own  province. 

On  the  other  hand,    the  whole  provision  for  the  endow- 


Ezra   Cornell.  9 

ment,  the  part  relating  to  the  land-grant,  and,  above  all,  the 
supplementary  bill  allowing  him  to  make  a  contract  with  the 
State  for  "locating"  the  lands,  were  thought  out  entirely  by 
himself ;  and  in  all  these  matters  he  showed,  not  only  a  public 
spirit  far  beyond  that  displayed  by  any  other  benefactor  of  ed- 
ucation in  his  time,  but  a  foresight  which  seemed  to  me  then, 
and  seems  to  me  now,  almost  miraculous. 

But,  while  he  thus  left  the  general  educational  features 
laro-ely  to  me,  he  uttered,  during  one  of  our  conversations, 
words  which  showed  that  he  comprehended  the  true  theory  of 
a  university  :  these  words  are  now  engraved  upon  the  Cornell 
University  seal:  "I  would  found  an  institution  where  any 
person  can  find  instruction  in  any  study." 

The  introduction  of  this  new  bill  into  the  Legislature 
was  a  signal  for  war.  Almost  all  the  denominational  colleges 
girded  themselves  for  the  fray,  and  sent  their  agents  to  fight 
us  at  Albany  ;  they  also  stirred  up  the  secular  press,  without 
distinction  of  party,  in  the  regions  where  they  were  situated,  and 
the  religious  organs  of  their  various  sects  in  the  great  cities. 

At  the  center  of  the  movement  against  us  was  the  ' '  Peo- 
ple's College"  :  it  had  rallied  in  force  and  won  over  the  chair- 
man of  the  Education  committee  in  the  Assembly,  so  that  un- 
der various  pretexts  he  delayed  considering  the  bill.  Worst  of 
all  there  appeared  against  us,  late  in  the  session,  a  professor 
from  the  Genesee  College — a  man  of  high  character  and  great 
ability  ;  and  he  did  his  work  most  vigorously.  He  brought 
the  whole  force  of  the  church  with  which  he  was  connected  to 
bear  upon  the  Legislature,  and  insisted  that  every  other  col- 
lege in  the  State  had  received  something  from  the  public 
funds,  while  his  had  received  none. 

As  a  first  result,  a  proposal  came  from  some  of  his  associ- 
ates, that  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  of  the  land-grant  fund 
should  be  paid  to  Genesee  College  ;  this  the  friends  of  the 
Cornell  bill  resisted,  on  the  ground  that,  if  the  fund  were 
broken  into  in  one  case,  it  would  be  in  others. 


10  My  Reminiscences  of 

It  was  next  proposed  that  Mr.  Cornell  should  agree  to  give 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  to  Genesee  College  on  the  passage 
of  the  bill ;  this  Mr.  Cornell  utterly  refused,  saying  that  not 
for  the  passage  of  any  bill  would  he  make  any  private  offer  or 
have  any  private  understanding, — that  every  condition  must 
be  put  into  the  bill,  where  all  men  could  see  it,  and  that  he 
would  then  accept  or  reject  it  as  he  might  think  best.  The 
result  was  that  our  opponents  were  strong  enough  to  force  a 
clause  into  the  bill  requiring  him  to  give  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  to  Genesee  College,  before  he  could  be  allowed  to  give 
five  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  the  proposed  University  ;  and 
the  friends  of  the  bill,  not  feeling  strong  enough  to  resist  this 
clause,  and  not  being  willing  to  see  the  enterprise  wrecked  for 
the  want  of  it,  allowed  it  to*  go  unopposed.  The  whole  mat- 
ter was  vexatious  to  the  last  degree  :  a  man  of  less  firmness 
and  earnestness,  thus  treated,  would  have  thrown  up  his  mu- 
nificent purpose  with  disgust,  but  Mr.  Cornell  quietly  perse- 
vered. 

Yet  the  troubles  of  the  proposed  University  had  only  be- 
gun. Mr.  Charles  Cook,  who  had,  while  a  State  Senator  dur- 
ing the  previous  session  of  the  Legislature,  secured  the  United 
States  land  grant  of  1862  for  the  People's  College,  was  a  man 
of  great  force,  a  born  leader  of  men,  anxious  to  build  up  his 
part  of  the  State,  and  especially  the  town  from  which  he  came, 
though  he  had  no  special  desire  to  put  any  considerable  part  of 
his  own  wealth  into  a  public  institution.  He  had  seen  the 
opportunities  afforded  by  the  land  grant,  had  secured  it,  and 
was  now  determined  to  fight  for  it.  The  struggle  became  bit- 
ter. His  emissaries,  including  the  members  of  the  Senate  and 
Assembly  from  his  part  of  the  State,  made  common  cause  with 
the  sectarian  colleges,  and  with  various  corporations  and  per- 
sons who,  having  bills  of  their  own  in  the  Legislature,  were 
ready  to  exchange  services  and  votes. 

The  coalition  of  all  these  forces  against  the  Cornell  Uni- 
versity bill  soon  became  very  formidable,  and  the  committee 


Ezra   Corriell.  1 1 

on  Education  in  the  Assembly,  to  which  the  bill  had  been  re- 
ferred, seemed  more  and  more  controlled  by  them.  To  meet 
this  difficulty,  we  resorted  to  means  intended  to  enlighten  the 
great  body  of  the  Senators  and  Assemblymen  as  to  the  pur- 
poses of  the  bill.  To  this  end  Mr.  Cornell  invited  the  mem- 
bers by  squads,  sometimes  to  his  rooms  at  Congress  Hall, 
sometimes  to  mine  at  the  Delavan  House  :  there  he  laid  before 
them  his  general  proposal  and  the  financial  side  of  the  plan, 
while  I  dwelt  upon  the  need  of  a  University  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word  ; — upon  the  opportunity  offered  by  this  great 
fund  ; — upon  the  necessity  of  keeping  it  together  ; — upon  the 
need  of  large  means  to  carry  out  any  scheme  of  technical  and 
general  education,  such  as  was  contemplated  by  the  Congres- 
sional Act  of  1862  ; — showed  the  proofs  that  the  People's  Col- 
lege would  and  could  do  nothing  to  meet  this  want  ; — that  di- 
vision of  the  fund  among  the  existing  colleges  was  simply  the 
annihilation  of  it ; — and,  in  general,  did  my  best  to  enlighten 
the  reason  and  arouse  the  patriotism  of  the  members  on  the 
subject  of  a  worthy  University  in  our  State. 

In  this  way  we  made  several  strong  friends  in  both 
Houses  :  among  them  some  men  of  great  natural  force  of 
character  who  had  never  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  much  early 
education,  but  who  were  none  the  less  anxious  that  those  who 
came  after  them  should  have  the  best  opportunities.  Of  these 
I  may  name  especially  Senators  Cook,  of  Saratoga,  and  Ames, 
of  Oswego.  Men  of  high  education  and  culture  also  aided  us, 
especially  Judge  Folger,  Mr.  Andrews,  and  Mr.  Havens  in  the 
Senate,  with  Mr.  Lord  and  Mr.  Weaver  in  the  Assembly. 

While  we  were  thus  laboring  with  the  Legislature  as  a 
whole,  serious  work  had  to  be  done  with  the  Assembly  com- 
mittee, and  Mr.  Cornell  employed  a  very  eminent  lawyer  to 
present  his  case,  while  Mr.  Cook  employed  one  no  less  noted 
to  take  the  opposite  side.  The  session  of  the  committee  was 
held  in  the  Assembly  chamber,  and  there  was  a  large  attend- 
ance of  spectators  ;  but,   unfortunately,   the  lawyer  employed 


12  My  Reminiscences  of 

by  Mr.  Cornell  having  taken  little  pains  with  the  case,  his 
speech  was  cold,  labored,  perfunctory,  and  fell  flat.  The 
speech  on  the  other  side  was  much  more  effective :  it  was  thin 
and  demagogical  in  the  extreme,  but  the  speaker  knew  well 
the  best  tricks  for  catching  the  "average  man"  ;  he  indulged 
in  eloquent  tirades  against  the  Cornell  bill  as  a  "monopoly," — 
"a  wild  project," — "a  selfish  scheme," — "a  job," — "a  grab" — 
and  the  like  ;  denounced  Mr.  Cornell  roundly  as  "seeking  to 
erect  a  monument  to  himself";  hinted  that  he  was  "planning 
to  rob  the  State  " ;  and,  before  he  had  finished,  had  pictured 
Mr.  Cornell  as  a  swindler  and  the  rest  of  us  as  dupes  or 
knaves. 

I  can  never  forget  the  quiet  dignity  with  which  Mr.  Cor- 
nell sat  and  took  this  abuse.  Mrs.  Cornell  sat  at  his  right,  I  at 
his  left :  in  one  of  the  worst  tirades  against  him,  he  turned  to 
me  and  said  quietly,  and  without  the  slightest  anger  or  excite- 
ment, "  If  I  could  think  of  any  other  way  in  which  half  a 
million  of  dollars  would  do  as  much  good  to  the  State,  I  would 
give  the  Legislature  no  more  trouble."  Shortly  afterward, 
when  the  invective  was  again  especially  bitter,  he  turned  to 
me  and  said,  "I  am  not  sure  but  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  me  to  give  the  half  a  million  to  old  Harvard  College  in 
Massachusetts,  to  educate  the  descendants  of  the  men  who 
hanged  my  forefathers." 

There  was  more  than  his  usual  quaint  humor  in  this, — 
there  was  that  deep  reverence  which  he  always  bore  toward  his 
Quaker  ancestry,  and  which  seemed  to  have  become  part  of 
him.  I  admired  Mr.  Cornell  on  many  occasions,  but  never 
more  than  during  that  hour  when  he  sat,  without  the  slightest 
anger,  mildly  taking  the  abuse  of  that  prostituted  pettifogger, 
the  indifference  of  the  committee,  and  the  laughter  of  the  au- 
dience. It  was  a  scene  for  a  painter,  and  I  trust  that  some  day 
it  will  be  fitly  perpetuated  for  the  University. 

This  struggle  over,  the  committee  could  not  be  induced 
to  report  the  bill  :   it  was  easy,  after  such  a  speech,   for  its 


Ezra   Cornell.  13 

members  to  pose  as  protectors  of  the  State  against  a  swindler  ^ 
and  a  monopoly  ;  the  chairman,  who,  shortly  after  the  close  of 
the  session,  was  mysteriously  given  a  position  in  the  New 
York  Custom  House,  made  pretext  after  pretext  without  re- 
porting, until  it  became  evident  that  we  must  have  a  struggle 
in  the  Assembly  and  drag  the  bill  out  of  the  committee  in 
spite  of  him.  To  do  this  required  a  two-thirds  vote  :  all  our 
friends  were  set  at  work,  and  some  pains  taken  to  scare  the 
corporations  which  had  allied  themselves  with  the  enemy,  in 
regard  to  the  fate  of  their  own  bills,  by  making  them  under- 
stand that,  unless  they  stopped  their  interested  opposition  to 
the  University  bill  in  the  House,  a  feeling  would  be  created  in 
the  Senate  very  unfortunate  for  them.  In  this  way  their 
clutch  upon  sundry  members  of  the  Assembly  was  somewhat 
relaxed,  and  these  were  allowed  to  vote  according  to  their  con- 
sciences. 

The  Cornell  bill  was  advocated  most  earnestly  in  the 
House  by  Mr.  Henry  B.  Lord  :  in  his  unpretentious  way  he 
marshalled  the  University  forces,  moved  that  the  bill  be  taken 
from  the  committee  and  referred  to  the  committee  of  the 
whole.  Now  came  a  struggle.  Most  of  the  best  men  in  the 
Assembly  stood  nobly  by  us  ;  but  the  waverers — men  who 
feared  local  pressure,  sectarian  hostility,  or  the  opposition  of 
Mr.  Cook  to  measures  of  their  own — attempted,  if  not  to  op- 
pose the  Cornell  bill,  at  least  to  evade  a  vote  upon  it.  In  or- 
der to  give  them  a  little  tone  and  strength,  Mr.  Cornell  went 
with  me  to  various  leading  editors  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  we  explained  the  whole  matter  to  them,  securing  editorial 
articles  favorable  to  the  University  :  prominent  among  these 
gentlemen  were  Horace  Greeley  of  the  Tribune,  Erastus 
Brooks  of  the  Express,  and  Manton  Marble  of  the  World. 
This  undoubtedly  did  much  for  us,  yet  when  the  vote  was  tak- 
en the  old  loss  of  courage  was  again  shown  ;  but  several 
friends  of  the  bill  stood  in  the  cloak-room,  fairly  shamed  the 
waverers  back  into  their  places,  and,  as  a.  result,  to  the  surprise 


14  My  Reminiscences  of 

and  disgust  of  the  chairman  of  the  Assembly  committee,  the 
bill  was  taken  out  of  his  control,  and  referred  to  the  commit- 
tee of  the  whole  House. 

Another  long  struggle  now  ensued,  but  the  bill  was  final- 
ly passed  and  came  back  to  the  Senate.  There  the  struggle 
was  renewed,  all  kinds  of  delaying  tactics  were  resorted  to, 
but  the  bill  was  finally  carried,  and  received  the  signature  of 
Governor  Fenton. 

Now  came  a  new  danger.  During  their  struggle  against 
the  bill,  our  enemies  had  been  strong  enough  to  force  into  it 
a  clause  enabling  the  People's  College  to  retain  the  land  fund, 
provided  it  should  be  shown  within  six  months  of  the  passage 
of  the  bill  to  be  in  possession  of  a  sum  such  as  the  Board  of 
Regents  should  declare  would  enable  it  to  comply  with  the 
conditions  on  which  it  had  originally  received  the  grant.  The 
Board  of  Regents  now  reported  that  the  sum  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars  would  be  equivalent  to  such  a  com- 
pliance, and  would  ensure  the  fund  to  the  People's  College. 
Naturally  we  watched,  »in  much  uneasy  suspense,  during  those 
six  months,  to  see  whether  Mr.  Cook  and  the  People's  College 
authorities  would  raise  this  sum  of  money,  so  small  in  compar- 
ison with  that  which  Mr.  Cornell  was  willing  to  give,  in  order 
to  secure  the  grant.  But  our  fears  were  baseless,  and  on  the 
5th  day  of  September,  1865,  the  Trustees  of  Cornell  Univer- 
sity were  assembled  for  the  first  time  at  Ithaca. 

Then  came  to  them  a  revelation  of  a  quality  in  Mr.  Cor- 
nell unknown  to  most  of  them  before.  In  one  of  the  petitions 
forwarded  from  Ithaca  to  the  Legislature  by  his  fellow-citizens 
it  had  been  stated  that  "  he  never  did  less  than  he  promised, 
but  generally  more."  So  it  was  found  in  this  case:  for  he 
turned  over  to  the  Trustees,  not  only  the  securities  for  the  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars  required  by  the  charter,  but  also 
gave  two  hundred  acres  of  land  as  a  site.  So  came  into  full  be- 
ing Cornell  University. 

Yet  the  services  of  Mr.   Cornell  had  only  begun :  he  at 


Ezra    Cornell.  15 

once  submitted  to  us  a  plan  for  doing  what  no  other  citizen 
had  done  for  any  other  State.  In  the  other  Commonwealths 
which  had  received  the  land  grant,  the  authorities  had  taken 
the  scrip  representing  the  land,  sold  it  at  the  market  price, 
and,  as  the  market  was  thus  glutted,  had  realized  but  a  small 
sum  ;  but  Mr.  Cornell,  with  that  foresight  which  was  his  most 
wonderful  characteristic,  saw  clearly  what  could  be  done  by 
using  the  scrip  to  take  up  the  land  for  the  institution.  To  do 
this  he  sought  aid  in  various  ways,  but  no  one  dared  join  him, 
and  at  last  he  determined  to  bear  the  whole  burden  himself. 
Scrip  representing  over  seven  hundred  thousand  acres  still  re- 
mained in  the  hands  of  the  Comptroller.  The  Trustees  re- 
ceived Mr.  Cornell's  plan  for  dealing  with  the  scrip  somewhat 
doubtfully,  but  the  enabling  Act  was  passed,  by  which  he  was 
permitted  to  "locate"  this  land  for  the  benefit  of  the  Univer- 
sity. So  earnest  was  he  in  this  matter  that  he  was  anxious  to 
take  up  the  entire  amount,  but  here  his  near  friends  inter- 
posed :  we  saw  too  well  what  a  terrible  load  the  taxes  and 
other  expenses  on  such  a  vast  tract  of  land  would  become,  be- 
fore it  could  be  sold  to  advantage.  Finally  Mr.  Cornell  yield- 
ed somewhat  :  it  was  agreed  that  he  should  take  up  five  hun- 
dred thousand  acres,  and  he  now  gave  himself  day  and  night 
to  this  great  part  of  the  enterprise,  which  was  to  provide  a 
proper  financial  basis  for  a  University  such  as  we  hoped  to 
found. 

Meanwhile,  at  Mr.  Cornell's  suggestion,  I  devoted  myself 
to  a  more  careful  plan  of  the  new  institution,  and,  at  the  next 
meeting  of  the  Board,  in  a  "  Plan  of  Organization,"  sketched 
out  the  purpose  and  constitution  of  such  a  University  as  that 
proposed.  Mr.  Cornell  studied  it  carefully,  gave  it  his  ap- 
proval, and  a  copy  with  notes  in  his  own  hand  is  still  pre- 
served. 

I  had  supposed  that  this  was  to  end  my  relations  with  Mr. 
Cornell,  so  far  as  the  University  was  concerned.  A  multitude  of 
matters  seemed  to  forbid  my  taking  any  further  care  for  it,  and 


1 6  My  Reminiscences  of 

a  call  to  another  position  very  attractive  to  me  drew  me  away 
from  all  thoughts  of  connection  with  it,  save,  perhaps,  such 
as  was  involved  in  meeting  the  Trustees  once  or  twice  a  year. 

Mr.  Cornell  had  asked  me,  from  time  to  time,  whether  I 
could  suggest  any  person  for  the  Presidency  of  the  University  ; 
I  mentioned  various  persons,  and  presented  the  arguments  in 
their  favor  :  one  day  he  said  to  me  quietly,  that  he  also  had  a 
candidate  ;  I  asked  him  who  it  was,  and  he  said  that  he  pre- 
ferred to  keep  the  matter  to  himself  until  the  next  meeting  of 
the  Trustees.  Nothing  more  passed  between  us  on  that  sub- 
ject :  I  had  no  inkling  of  his  purpose,  but  thought  it  most 
likely  that  his  candidate  was  a  western  gentleman  whose 
claims  had  been  strongly  pressed  upon  him.  When  the  Trus- 
tees came  together,  and  the  subject  was  brought  up,  I  present- 
ed the  merits  of  various  gentlemen,  especially  of  one  already 
at  the  head  of  an  important  College  in  the  State,  who,  I 
thought,  would  give  us  success.  Upon  this,  Mr.  Cornell  rose, 
and,  in  a  very  simple  but  earnest  speech,  presented  my  name. 
It  was  entirely  unexpected  by  me,  and  I  endeavored  to  show 
the  Trustees  that  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  take  the  place  in 
view  of  other  duties ; — that  it  needed  a  man  of  more  robust 
health,  of  greater  age,  and  of  wider  reputation  in  the  State. 
But  Mr.  Cornell  quietly  persisted,  our  colleagues  declared 
themselves  unanimously  of  his  opinion,  and,  with  many  mis- 
givings, I  gave  a  provisional  acceptance. 

The  relation  thus  begun  ended  only  with  Mr.  Cornell's 
life,  and  from  first  to  last  it  grew  more  and  more  interesting  to 
me.  We  were  thrown  much  together  at  Albany,  at  Ithaca, 
and  on  various  journeys  undertaken  for  the  University  ;  and, 
the  more  I  saw  of  him,  the  deeper  became  my  respect  for  him. 
There  were,  indeed,  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  some  things 
trying  to  one  of  my  temperament,  and  among  these  things  I 
may  mention  his  exceeding  reticence,  and  his  willingness  not 
only  to  labor  but  to  wait  ;  but  these  stood  not  at  all  in  the  way 
of  my  respect  and  affection  for  him. 


Ezra   Cornell.  ij 

His  liberality  was  unstinted.  While  using  his  fortune  in 
taking  up  the  lands,  he  was  constantly  doing  generous  things 
for  the  University  and  those  connected  with  it.  One  of  the 
first  of  these  was  his  gift  of  the  library  in  classical  literature 
collected  by  Dr.  Charles  Anthon  of  Columbia  College  :  noth- 
ing could  apparently  be  more  outside  his  sympathy  than  the 
studies  represented  by  these  seven  thousand  volumes  ;  but  he 
stood  firm  to  his  idea  of  the  new  institution,  bought  them  for 
over  twelve  thousand  dollars,  and  gave  them  to  the  University. 

Then  came  the  Jewett  Collection  in  Geology,  which  he 
gave  at  a  cost  of  ten  thousand  dollars  ;  the  Ward  Collection  of 
casts,  at  a  cost  of  three  thousand  ;  the  Newcomb  Collection  in 
Conchology,  at  a  cost  of  sixteen  thousand  ;  an  addition  to  the 
University  grounds,  valued  at  many  thousands  more  ;  and  it 
was  only  the  claims  of  a  multitude  of  minor  University  mat- 
ters upon  his  purse  which  prevented  his  carrying  out  a  favor- 
ite plan  of  giving  us  a  great  telescope,  at  a  cost  of  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  At  a  later  period,  to  extinguish  the  University 
debt,  to  increase  the  equipment,  and  eventually  to  provide  free 
scholarships  and  fellowships,  he  made  an  additional  gift  of 
about  seventy  thousand  dollars. 

While  doing  these  things,  he  was  constantly  advancing 
large  sums  in  locating  the  University  lands,  and  in  paying 
University  salaries,  for  which  our  funds  were  not  yet  available, 
while  from  time  to  time  he  made  many  gifts  which,  though 
smaller,  were  no  less  striking  evidences  of  the  largeness  of  his 
view  :  I  may  mention  a  few  among  these  as  typical. 

Having  found  a  set  of  Piranesi's  great  work  on  the  An- 
tiquities of  Rome, — a  superb  copy — the  gift  of  a  Pope  to  a 
Royal  Duke, — upon  the  catalogue  of  a  London  bookseller,  I 
showed  it  to  him,  when  he  at  once  ordered  it  for  our  library  at 
a  cost  of  about  one  thousand  dollars.  At  another  time,  seeing 
the  need  of  some  costly  works  to  illustrate  Agriculture,  he 
gave  them  to  us  at  a  cost  of  over  a  thousand  dollars  ;  and, 
having  heard   Professor  Tyndall's  lectures  in  New  York,  he 


18  My  Reminiscences  of 

bought  additional  physical  apparatus  to  enable  our  resident 
professor  to  repeat  the  lectures  at  Ithaca,  and  this  cost  him 
fifteen  hundred  dollars. 

Characteristic  of  him,  too,  was  another  piece  of  munifi- 
cence. When  the  clause  forced  into  the  University  charter, 
requiring  him  to  give  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  to  another 
institution  before  he  could  be  allowed  to  give  half  a  million  to 
his  own,  was  noised  abroad  through  the  State,  there  was  a 
general  feeling  of  disgust,  and  at  the  next  session  of  the  Leg- 
islature a  bill  was  brought  in  to  refund  the  twenty-five  thou- 
sand dollars  to  him.  Upon  this,  he  remarked  that  what  he 
once  gave  he  never  took  back,  but  that  if  the  University  Trus- 
tees would  accept  it  he  had  no  objection.  The  bill  was  modi- 
fied to  this  effect,  and  thus  the  wrong  was  righted. 

Early  in  the  year  1868  I  went  to  Europe  for  three  months, 
to  look  at  various  institutions  for  technical  education,  and  un- 
der instructions  to  make  large  purchases  of  books,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, to  secure  one  or  two  men  greatly  needed  in  special  de- 
partments not  then  much  cultivated  in  this  country.  It  was  a 
cold,  raw  morning  in  March  when  Mr.  Cornell  went  with  me  to 
the  dock,  and  gave  his  last  kind  assurances.  He  had  felt 
strongly  the  importance  of  having  the  Agricultural  depart- 
ment fairly  equipped,  and  he  had  been  told  of  an  eminent  Pro- 
fessor of  Veterinary  Surgery  in  England  who  might  possibly  be 
secured  :  the  last  words  that  I  heard  from  the  shore  were  from 
Mr.  Cornell,  who  called  out  to  me  in  a  jocose  way,  "Bring 
back  that  horse-doctor!"  His  foresight  was  justified,  for  the 
gentleman  thus  secured  has  since  rendered  inestimable  service, 
not  only  in  professorial  work,  but  in  shielding  the  whole 
country  from  cattle-plague,. 

His  generosity  was  unfailing.  Large  as  were  the  pur- 
chases which  I  was  authorized  to  make,  the  number  of  desir- 
able things  outside  this  limit  steadily  grew  larger  ;  but  my  let- 
ters to  him  invariably  brought  back  the  commission  to  secure 
this  additional  material. 


Ezra   Cornell.  19 

During  this  occupation  of  mine  in  Europe,  he  was  quite  as 
busy  in  the  woods  of  the  upper  Mississippi  and  on  the  plains  of 
Kansas,  taking  up  University  lands.  No  fatigue  or  expendi- 
ture deterred  him. 

On  meeting  again  at  Ithaca,  we  found  that,  during  our 
work  elsewhere,  many  matters  had  fallen  into  a  very  backward 
state  ;  indeed,  the  look  of  everything  at  the  University  was 
very  discouraging.  Though  our  charter  required  us  to  begin 
instruction  in  October,  there  seemed  in  August  little  chance  of 
it.  The  contractor  for  the  first  building  had  failed,  and  his 
work  was  wretchedly  behindhand  ;  the  main  roads  to  the  Uni- 
versity site  were  as  yet  impassable,  for  the  two  deep  ravines 
which  intersect  them  were  as  yet  unbridged  ;  the  grounds  were 
encumbered  with  heaps  of  earth  and  piles  of  material  ;  furni- 
ture, apparatus,  books,  which  had  come  in  great  quantities, 
had  been  bestowed  wherever  any  temporary  place  could  be 
found.  Typical  was  the  case  of  the  Holtz  electrical  machine 
which  I  had  sent  from  Germany  :  it  was  in  those  days  a  great 
novelty,  and  many  were  anxious  to  see  it  ;  but  for  weeks  it 
could  not  be  found,  and  it  was  discovered  only  when  the  last 
pots  and  pans  were  pulled  out  of  the  kitchen  store-room  in  the 
great  student  barrack  known  as  "  Cascadilla. "  Things  of 
every  sort  of  which  there  was  pressing  need  had  been  delayed 
in  steamships  and  railways,  or  were  stuck  fast  in  custom- 
houses and  warehouses,  from  Berlin  and  Paris  to  Ithaca.  Our 
friends  in  Ithaca,  during  our  absence,  had  toiled  heroically  ; 
but  the  resources  of  the  town,  then  much  less  energetic  than 
now,  had  been  insufficient  for  so  much  work  in  so  short  a  time. 
The  heating  apparatus,  and  even  the  doors  for  the  rooms  at  the 
Cascadilla  building — the  main  refuge  for  the  great  body  of  our 
students — were  not  in  place  until  many  days  after  winter 
weather  had  set  in. 

To  complicate  matters,  students  began  to  come  in  numbers 
far  greater,  and  at  a  period  much  earlier,  than  we  had  expect- 
ed.    But,  if  our  expectations  had  been  too  small,  theirs  were 


20  My  Reminiscences  of 

quite  as  much  too  large  :  in  the  warmth  of  his  sympathy  for 
young  men  of  great  talents  and  small  means,  Mr.  Cornell  had 
expressed  himself  very  strongly  as  to  the  ability  of  such  to 
support  themselves  by  manual  labor,  while  carrying  on  their 
studies.  He  had  judged  the  possibilities  in  their  case  by  what 
he  had  himself  accomplished  ;  hence  arose  a  very  trying  addi- 
tion to  our  cares.  Before  our  doors  opened,  over  four  hundred 
students  were  pressing  forward  ;  many  were  of  the  best  sort 
possible,  and  some  were  men  who  have  risen  since  to  positions 
of  great  honor  and  responsibility  ;  but  with  these  came  prob- 
ably the  most  motley  company  that  ever  sought  entrance  at  an 
institution  of  learning.  Most  of  these  had  interpreted  the 
philanthropic  views  of  Mr.  Cornell  in  the  light  of  their  own 
hopes  :  as  a  result  of  this,  in  the  thickest  of  our  difficulties,  we 
were  beset  by  a  multitude  of  eager  young  men  insisting  on  re- 
ceiving self-supporting  labor.  Nearly  all  of  these  who  had 
any  trade  or  could  offer  skilled  labor  of  any  sort  proved  useful 
to  us,  and  some  graduates  of  whom  Cornell  University  is  now 
most  proud  supported  themselves  in  those  days  by  working  as 
carpenters,  or  masons,  or  printers,  or  accountants,  or  shorthand 
writers.  But  beside  these  were  many  who  had  never  done  any 
skilled  labor,  and  even  a  larger  number  who  had  never  done 
any  manual  labor  at  all  :  these  were  employed,  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, in  grading  roads,  laying  out  paths,  helping  on  the  farm, 
doing  janitors'  work,  and  the  like.  Some  of  these  were  suc- 
cessful, most  were  not :  it  was  found  that,  as  to  many  of  them, 
it  would  be  cheaper  to  support  them  at  a  hotel,  and  to  employ 
day-laborers  in  their  places  :  much  of  their  work  had  to  be 
done  over,  at  a  cost  greater  than  the  original  outlay  should 
have  been.  Typical  was  the  matter  of  husking  corn  by  stu- 
dent labor  upon  the  University  farm  :  it  was  found  to  cost 
more  than  the  resulting  shelled  corn  -  could  be  sold  for  in 
market. 

But  the  expectations  of  the  youths  were  none  the  less  high- 
ly developed.     One  of  them,   who  had  never  done  any  sort  of 


Ezra   Cornell.  21 

manual  labor,  asked  if,  while  learning  to  build  machinery,  and 
supporting  himself  and  his  family,  he  could  not  lay  up  some- 
thing against  contingencies  ;  another,  a  teamster  in  a  western 
State,  came  to  offer  his  services,  and,  on  being  asked  what  he 
wished  to  study,  said  that  he  wished  to  learn  to  read.  On  be- 
ing told  that  the  public  school  was  the  place  for  that,  he  was 
very  indignant,  and  quoted  Mr.  Cornell's  words,  "I  would 
found  an  institution  where  any  person  can  find  instruction  in 
any  study."  Others,  good  scholars  but  of  delicate  build,  hav- 
ing applied  for  self-supporting  employment,  were  assigned  to 
light  occupations  upon  the  University  grounds,  but,  becoming 
weary  of  it,  wrote  bitterly  to  leading  metropolitan  journals, 
denouncing  Mr.  Cornell's  bad  faith  and  cruelty  :  one  came  all 
the  way  from  Russia,  though  only  able  to  reach  Ithaca  from 
New  York  by  charity,  and,  on  arriving,  was  found  to  be  utter- 
ly incapable  either  of  physical  or  mental  effort. 

Added  to  these  were  dreamers  and  schemers  of  more  ma- 
ture age.  The  mails  were  burdened  with  their  communica- 
tions, and  our  offices  with  their  presence.  Some  had  plans  for 
the  regeneration  of  humanity  by  inventing  machines  which 
they  wished  us  to  build  ;  some  by  devising  systems  of  thought 
which  they  wished  us  to  promulgate  ;  some  by  writing  books 
which  they  wished  us  to  publish  ;  most  by  taking  professor- 
ships which  they  wished  us  to  endow. 

The  inevitable  "politician"  also  appeared ;  and,  at  the  first 
meeting  of  the  Trustees  in  Ithaca,  two  of  the  most  notorious 
party  hacks  in  New  York  city  came  by  express  train  to  tell  us 
"what  the  people  expect,"  and  to  nominate  sundry  friends  of 
their  own  to  various  positions  in  our  gift  :  I  think  that  the 
hardest  strain  ever  brought  upon  Mr.  Cornell  and  myself  was 
in  showing  civility  to  all  these  gentlemen  ;  yet,  as  we  were 
obliged  to  deny  them,  no  suavity  on  our  part  could  stay  the  in- 
evitable result — their  hostility. 

The  attacks  of  the  denominational  Press  upon  us  for  our 
unsectarian,  and  therefore,  as  they  claimed,  "godless"  charac- 


/ 


22  My  Reminiscences  of 

ter,  the  attacks  of  many  local  presses  in  the  interest  of  institu- 
tions which  had  failed  to  secure  a  part  of  the  fund,  were  thus 
largely  reinforced.  Ever  and  anon  came  onslaughts  upon  us 
personally,  and  upon  every  feature  of  the  institution,  whether 
adopted,  probable,  possible,  or  conceivable.  One  eminent  edi- 
torial personage,  having  vainly  sought  to  "unload"  a  member 
of  his  editorial  staff  into  one  of  our  professorships,  immediate- 
ly published  a  long  communication  showing  the  turpitude  of 
Mr.  Cornell  in  land  matters, — fairly  howling  for  legislative  in- 
vestigation ;  and  never  afterward,  until  a  very  disgraceful  affair 
put  an  end  to  his  public  career,  did  he  omit  an  opportunity  to 
make  a  fling  at  the  new  institution. 

Another  gentleman,  editor  of  a  "  Review,"  hurried  to  Ith- 
aca, and  insisted  that  the  one  thing  needful  for  the  University 
was  a  full-page  advertisement  and  a  laudatory  article  in  his 
columns :  when  informed  that  the  demands  upon  our  funds 
made  it  impossible  to  appropriate  the  large  sum  he  required, 
he  hinted  significantly  that  we  might  fare  as  another  college 
had  done,  and  receive  gratis  an  elaborate  article  demonstrating 
the  futility  of  all  our  plans  ;  but  he  was  referred  to  Horace 
Greeley  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  and  to  Erastus  Brooks  of 
the  New  York  Express,  both  upon  our  Board  of  Trustees,  and 
we  saw  him  no  more.  But  with  others  we  were  not  so  fortun- 
ate, and  attacks  of  every  sort,  with  appeals  to  the  Legislature 
against  us,  were  multiplied. 

During  this  period  I  passed  much  time  with  Mr.  Cornell 
on  his  home  farm.  He  lived  generously,  in  a  kind  of  patri- 
archal simplicity,  and  I  remember  with  intense  interest  many  of 
our  conversations.  His  reticence  gradually  yielded,  and  he 
gave  me  much  information  regarding  his  earlier  years  :  they 
had  been  full  of  toil  and  struggle,  but  there  was  clear  evidence 
through  the  whole  of  a  noble  purpose.  Whatever  of  worthy 
work  his  hand  had  found  to  do,  he  had  done  it  with  his  might : 
the  steamers  of  Cayuga  Lake,  the  tunnel  which  carries  the 
waters  of  Fall  Creek  to  the  mills  below,  the  mills  themselves, 


Ezra    Cornell.  23 

the  dams  against  that  turbulent  stream,  which  he  built  after 
others  had  failed  and  which  stand  firmly  to  this  day,  the  calen- 
dar clocks  for  which  the  town  has  become  famous,  and  of 
which  he  furnished  the  original  hint  ;  all  these  he  touched  up- 
on, though  so  modestly  that  I  never  found  out  his  full  agency 
in  them  until  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  many  of  his 
townsmen  at  a  later  period. 

Especially  interesting  were  his  references  to  the  begin- 
nings of  American  telegraphic  enterprise,  with  which  he  had 
so  much  to  do. 

His  connection  with  it  began  in  a  curious  way.  Travel- 
ing in  northern  New  England  to  dispose  of  a  plow  which  he 
had  invented,  he  entered  the  office  of  a  gentleman  who  had 
taken  the  contract  for  laying  the  first  telegraphic  wires  under- 
ground between  Washington  and  Baltimore,  and  found  him  in 
much  doubt  and  trouble  :  the  difficulty  was  to  lay  the  leaden 
pipe  containing  the  two  insulated  wires  at  a  cost  within  the 
terms  of  the  contract.  Hearing  this,  Mr.  Cornell  said:  "I 
will  build  you  a  machine  which  will  dig  the  trench,  lay  the 
pipe  and  wires,  and  cover  them  with  earth  rapidly  and 
cheaply." 

This  proposal  was  at  first  derided  ;  but,  as  Mr.  Cornell  in- 
sisted upon  it,  he  was  at  last  allowed  to  show  what  he  could 
do.  The  machine  having  been  constructed,  Mr.  Cornell  met  a 
committee  to  show  it.  The  long  line  of  horses  attached  to  it 
having  been  started,  it  was  thrown  about  over  the  inequalities 
of  the  ground  so  much  that  the  committee  declared  that  it 
could  not  succeed.  Presently  Mr.  Cornell  took  them  to  the 
ground  over  which  the  machine  had  just  passed,  and,  pointing 
them  to  a  line  of  newly  turned  earth,  asked  them  to  dig  in  it : 
"having  done  this,  they  found  the  pipe  encasing  the  wires,  ac- 
knowledged his  triumph,  and  immediately  employed  him  to 
lay  the  wires  by  his  machine. 

But  before  long  he  became  convinced  that  this  was  not  the 
best  way.     Having  drawn  all  the  books  on  electricity  that  he 


24  My  Reminiscences  of 

could  find  in  the  Congressional  Library,  he  had  satisfied  him- 
self that  it  would  be  far  better  and  cheaper  to  string  the  wires 
through  the  open  air  upon  poles.  This  idea  was  for  a  time  re- 
sisted by  the  men  controlling  the  scheme.  Some  of  them  re- 
garded such  interference  in  a  scientific  matter  by  one  whom 
they  considered  a  plain  working  man  as  altogether  too  presum- 
ing. But  one  day  Professor  Morse  came  out  to  decide  the  mat- 
ter. Finding  Mr.  Cornell  at  his  machine,  the  Professor  ex- 
plained the  difficulties  in  the  case — especially  the  danger  of 
shaking  the  confidence  of  Congress,  and  so  losing  the  necessary 
appropriation,  should  any  change  in  plan  be  adopted — and 
then  asked  Mr.  Cornell  if  he  could  see  any  way  out  of  the  dif- 
ficulty. Mr.  Cornell  answered  that  he  could  :  whereupon  Pro- 
fessor Morse  expressed  a  strong  wish  that  it  might  be  taken. 
At  this  Mr.  Cornell  gave  the  word  to  his  men,  started  up  the 
long  line  of  horses  dragging  the  ponderous  machine,  guided  it 
with  his  own  hands  into  a  great  bowlder  lying  near,  and  thus 
broke  and  deranged  the  whole  machinery. 

As  a  natural  result  it  was  announced  by  various  journals  at 
the  national  capital  that  the  machinery  for  laying  the  wires 
had  been  broken  by  the  carelessness  of  an  employe,  but  that  it 
would  doubtless  soon  be  repaired  and  the  work  resumed. 
Thanks  to  this  stratagem,  the  necessary  time  was  gained  with- 
out shaking  the  confidence  of  Congress,  and  he  at  once  began 
stringing  the  wires  upon  poles  ;  the  insulation  was  found  far 
better  than  in  the  underground  system,  and  there  was  no  more 
trouble. 

The  confidence  of  the  promoters  of  the  enterprise  being 
thus  gained,  Mr.  Cornell  was  employed  to  do  their  work  in  all 
parts  of  the  country,  and  his  sturdy  honesty,  energy,  and  per- 
sistence justified  their  confidence  and  laid  the  foundations  of 
his  own  fortune. 

Very  striking  were  the  accounts  of  his  troubles  and  trials 
during  the  prosecution  of  this  telegraphic  work  ;  troubles  from 
men   of  pretended   science, — from   selfish    men, — from    stupid 


Ezra    Cornell.  25 

men, — all  told  without  the  slightest  feeling  of  bitterness 
against  any  human  being,  but  with  a  quaint  good-nature  and 
shrewd  humor  which  made  the  story  very  enjoyable. 

Through  all  his  history,  as  I  then  began  to  learn  it,  ran  a 
thread,  or  rather  a  strong  cord,  of  stoicism.  He  had  clung 
with  such  desperate  tenacity  to  his  faith  in  the  future  of  the 
telegraphic  system,  that,  sooner  than  part  with  his  interest  in 
it,  even  when  its  stock  was  utterly  discredited,  he  suffered  the 
disadvantages  of  poverty,  and  almost  the  pangs  of  want. 
While  pressing  on  his  telegraphic  construction,  he  had  been 
terribly  wounded  in  a  western  railroad  accident,  but  had  qui- 
etly extricated  himself  from  the  dead  and  dying,  and,  as  I 
learned  from  others,  had  borne  his  sufferings  without  a  mur- 
mur. At  another  time,  overtaken  by  the  ship-fever  at  Mont- 
real, and  thought  to  be  beyond  help,  he  had  quietly  made  up 
his  mind  that,  if  he  could  reach  a  certain  hydropathic  estab- 
lishment in  New  York,  he  could  recover  ;  and  he  had  dragged 
himself  through  that  long  journey,  desperately  ill  as  he  was, 
in  railway  cars,  steamers,  and  stages,  until  he  reached  his  de- 
sired haven  ;  and  there  he  finally  recovered,  though  nearly 
every  other  person  attacked  by  the  disease  at  his  Montreal 
hotel  had  died. 

Pursuing  his  telegraphic  enterprise,  he  had  been  obliged 
at  times  to  fight  very  strong  men  and  great  combinations  of 
capital,  but  this  same  stoical  spirit  carried  him  through  :  he 
used  to  say  laughingly  that  his  way  was  to  "tire  them  out." 

When,  at  last,  fortune  had  begun  to  smile  upon  him,  his 
public  spirit  began  to  show  itself  in  more  striking  forms, 
though  not  in  forms  more  real,  than  in  his  earlier  days.  Evi- 
dences of  this  met  the  eye  of  his  visitors  at  once,  and  among 
these  were  the  fine  cattle,  sheep,  fruit-trees,  and  the  like, 
which  he  had  brought  back  from  his  visit  to  the  great  Exposi- 
tion of  the  World's  Industry  in  1851  at  London.  His  observa- 
tions of  the  agricultural  experiments  of  Lawes  and  Gilbert  at 
Rothampstead  in  England,  and  his  visits  to  various  Agricultur- 


26  My  Reminiscences  of 

al  Exhibitions,  had  led  him  to  attempt  similar  work  at  home. 
Everything  that  could  improve  the  community  in  which  he 
lived  had  been  matter  of  concern  to  him.  He  had  taken  the 
lead  in  establishing  "  Cascadilla  Place,"  in  order  to  give  a 
very  gifted  woman  an  opportunity  to  show  her  abilities  in  ad- 
ministering hydropathic  treatment  to  disease.  He  had  gone  on 
with  his  public  library,  which,  when  I  first  visited  Ithaca,  was 
just  completed. 

He  never  showed  the  slightest  approach  to  display  or  van- 
ity regarding  any  of  these  things,  and  most  of  them  I  heard  of 
first,  at  a  later  period,  from  others. 

Although  his  religious  ideas  were  very  far  from  those  gen- 
erally considered  orthodox,  he  had  a  deep  sympathy  with 
every  good  effort  for  religion  and  morality,  no  matter  by  whom 
made  ;  and  he  contributed  freely  to  churches  of  every  name 
and  to  good  purposes  of  every  sort.  He  had  quaint  ways  at 
times  in  making  such  gifts,  and  from  the  many  stories  showing 
these  I  select  one  as  characteristic.  During  the  war,  the 
young  ladies  of  the  village  held  large  sewing-circles,  doing 
work  for  the  soldiers.  When  Mr.  Cornell  was  asked  to  contrib- 
ute to  their  funds,  to  the  great  surprise  of  those  who  asked 
him,  he  declined,  and  said  dryly,  "Of  course  these  women 
don't  really  come  together  to  sew  for  the  soldiers  ;  they  come 
together  to  gossip."  This  was  said,  no  doubt  with  that 
peculiar  twinkle  of  the  eye  which  his  old  friends  can  well 
remember;  but,  on  the  young  ladies'  protesting  that  he  did 
them  injustice,  he  answered,  "If  you  can  prove  that  I  am 
wrong,  I  will  gladly  contribute  :  if  you  will  only  sew  together 
all  one  afternoon,  and  no  one  of  you  speak  a  word,  I  will  give 
you  a  hundred  dollars."  The  society  met,  and  complete 
silence  reigned.  The  young  men  of  the  community  hearing  of 
this,  and  seeing  an  admirable  chance  to  tease  their  fair 
acquaintances,  came  in  large  numbers  to  the  sewing-circle,  and 
tried  to  engage  the  young  women  in  conversation  ;  at  first 
these  attempts  were  in  vain,  but,  finally,  to  a  question  skillful- 


Ezra   Cornell.  27 

ly  put,  one  of  the  young  ladies  made  a  reply.  This  broke  the 
spell  ;  of  course,  the  whole  assembly  were  very  unhappy  ;  but, 
when  all  was  told  to  Mr.  Cornell,  he  said,  "They  shall  have 
their  hundred  dollars,  for  they  have  done  better  than  any  other 
women  ever  did." 

But  I  ought  to  say  here  that  this  little  episode  would  be 
grossly  misunderstood,  were  it  supposed  to  indicate  any  tend- 
ency in  his  heart  or  mind  toward  a  cynical  view  of  woman- 
kind. Nothing  could  be  more  simple  and  noble  in  its  way 
than  his  reference  to  her  who  had  stood  at  his  side  courageous- 
ly, hopefully,  and  cheerily  during  his  years  of  struggle  and 
want  of  appreciation  :  well  might  he  speak  of  her,  as  he  did 
once  in  my  hearing,  as  "the  best  woman  who  ever  lived." 
And  his  gentle  courtliness  and  thoughtful  kindness  were  deep- 
ly appreciated  in  other  households,  as  well  as  in  his  own.  His 
earnestness,  too,  in  behalf  of  the  higher  education  of  women, 
and  of  their  fair  treatment  in  various  professions  and  occupa- 
tions, showed  something  far  deeper  than  conventional  politeness. 

From  the  time  when  I  began  to  know  him  best,  his  main 
thought  was  concentrated  upon  the  University.  His  own  busi- 
ness interests  were  freely  sacrificed ;  his  time,  wealth,  and 
effort  were  all  yielded  to  his  work  in  taking  up  the  University 
lands,  to  say  nothing  of  supplementary  work  which  became  in 
many  ways  a  heavy  burden  to  him. 

During  the  summer  preceding  the  opening  of  the  Uni- 
versity, this  labor  and  care  began  to  wear  upon  him,  and  he 
was  attacked  by  an  old  malady  which  gave  him  great  pain  ;  yet 
his  stoicism  asserted  itself :  through  night  after  night,  as  I  lay 
in  the  room  next  his  at  his  farm-house,  I  could  hear  him  groan, 
and  to  my  natural  sympathy  was  added  a  fear  lest  he  might  not 
live  through  this  most  critical  period  in  the  history  of  the  new 
institution  ;  but,  invariably,  when  I  met  him  the  next  morning 
and  asked  how  he  felt,  his  answer  was,  "All  right,"  or  "Very 
well"  ;  I  cannot  remember  ever  hearing  him  make  any  com- 
plaint of  his  sufferings  or  even  any  reference  to  them. 


28  My  Reminiscences  of 

Nor  did  pain  diminish  his  steady  serenity  or  generosity  : 
I  remember  that  on  one  hot  afternoon  of  that  summer,  when 
he  had  come  into  the  house  thoroughly  weary,  a  young  man 
called  upon  him  to  ask  for  aid  in  securing  school-books.  Mr. 
Cornell  questioned  him  closely,  and  then  rose,  walked  with 
him  down  the  hill  into  the  town,  and  bought  the  books  which 
were  needed. 

As  the  day  approached  for  the  formal  opening  of  the  Uni- 
versity, he  was  obliged  to  yield  to  the  malady,  and  to  remain 
in  bed  :  care  and  toil  had  prostrated  me  also,  and  both  of  us,  a 
sorry  couple  indeed,  had  to  be  taken  from  our  beds  to  be  car- 
ried to  the  opening  exercises. 

A  great  crowd  had  assembled  from  all  parts  of  the  State  : 
many  were  enthusiastic,  more  doubtful,  and  some  were  decid- 
edly inclined  to  scoff. 

Some  who  were  expected  were  not  present.  The  Govern- 
or of  the  State,  though  he  had  been  in  Ithaca  the  day  before, 
quietly  left  town  on  the  eve  of  the  opening  exercises.  His 
Excellency  was  a  very  wise  man  in  his  generation,  and  evident- 
ly felt  that  it  was  not  best  for  him  to  have  too  much  to  do  with 
an  institution  which  the  sectarian  press  had  so  generally  con- 
demned. I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Cornell 
broke  the  news  to  me,  and  the  accent  of  calm  contempt  in  his 
voice.  Fortunately  there  remained  with  us  the  Lieutenant 
Governor,  General  Stewart  Lyndon  Woodford  :  he  came  to  the 
front  nobly,  and  stood  by  us  firmly  and  munificently  ever  after- 
ward. 

Mr.  Cornell's  speech  on  that  occasion  was  very  simple  and 
noble  ;  his  whole  position,  to  one  who  knew  what  he  had  gone 
through  in  the  way  of  obloquy,  hard  work,  and  self-sacrifice, 
was  touching.  Worn  down  by  his  illness,  he  was  unable  to 
stand,  and  he  therefore  read  his  address  in  a  low  tone  from  his 
chair.  It  was  very  impressive,  almost  incapacitating  me  from 
speaking  after  him,  and  I  saw  tears  in  the  eyes  of  many  in  the 
audience.     Nothing  could  be  more  simple  than  this  speech  of 


Ezra   Cornell.  29 

his  :  it  was  mainly  devoted  to  a  plain  assertion  of  the  true  uni- 
versity theory  in  its  most  elementary  form,  and  to  a  plea  that 
women  should  have  equal  privileges  with  men  in  advanced  ed- 
ucation. In  the  midst  of  it  his  quaint  shrewdness  asserted  it- 
self ;  for,  in  replying  to  a  recent  charge  that  everything  at  the 
University  was  unfinished,  he  remarked,  in  substance,  "We 
have  not  invited  you  to  see  a  University  finished,  but  to  see  it 
begun." 

As  to  the  effect  of  his  speech,  I  may  mention  that,  at  the 
close  of  it,  Mr.  Henry  W.  Sage  came  to  me  and  said,  "I  notice 
that  Mr.  Cornell  and  you  advocate  the  admission  of  women  to 
the  University  :  when  the  time  comes  for  it,  let  me  know, — I 
will  stand  by  you."  The  result  is  to-day  seen  in  Sage  College 
with  its  equipment  and  endowment,  the  Library,  the  Profes- 
sorship of  Ethics,  and  a  great  number  of  other  gifts,  amount- 
ing to  at  least  a  million  of  dollars. 

The  opening  day  seemed  a  success,  but  the  very  success  of 
it  stirred  up  the  enemy  :  a  bitter  letter  from  Ithaca  to  a  leading 
denominational  organ  in  New  York  gave  the  signal,  and  soon 
the  whole  sectarian  press  was  in  full  cry,  steadily  pressing  up- 
on Mr.  Cornell  and  those  who  stood  near  him.  The  secular 
presses  also  soon  thought  it  wise  to  join  in  the  attack,  and  it 
was  quickly  extended  from  his  ideas  to  his  honor,  and  even  to 
his  honesty.  It  seemed  beyond  the  conception  of  many  of 
these  gentlemen  that  a  man  of  Quaker  birth,  who,  if  he  gave 
any  thought  at  all  to  this  or  that  creed,  or  this  or  that  "plan 
of  salvation,"  passed  it  all  by  as  utterly  irrelevant  and  inade- 
quate, could  be  an  honest  man  ;  and  a  far  greater  number 
seemed  to  find  it  just  as  difficult  to  believe  that  a  man  could 
sacrifice  his  comfort  and  risk  his  fortune  in  managing  so  great 
a  landed  property  for  the  public  interest  without  any  concealed 
scheme  of  plunder. 

But  he  bore  all  this  with  his  usual  stoicism.  It  seemed  to 
increase  his  devotion  to  the  institution,  rather  than  to  diminish 
it.     When  the  receipts  from  the  endowment  fell  short  or  were 


30  My  Reminiscences  of 

delayed,  he  continued  to  advance  money  freely  to  meet  the 
salaries  of  the  professors  ;  and,  for  apparatus,  books,  and  equip- 
ment of  every  sort,  his  purse  was  constantly  opened. 

Yet,  in  those  days  of  toil  and  care  and  obloquy,  there  were 
some  things  which  encouraged  him  much.  At  that  period  all 
patriotic  Americans  felt  deep  gratitude  to  Goldwin  Smith  for 
his  courage  and  eloquence  in  standing  by  our  country  during 
the  Civil  War,  and  great  admiration  for  his  profound  and  bril- 
liant historical  lectures  at  Oxford.  Naturally,  on  arriving  in 
London,  I  sought  to  engage  him  for  the  new  University,  and 
was  authorized  by  Mr.  Cornell  to  make  him  large  pecuniary 
offers.  Professor  Smith  entered  at  once  into  our  plans  hearti- 
ly, wrote  to  encourage  us,  came  to  us,  lived  with  us  amid 
what,  to  him,  must  have  been  great  privations,  lectured  for  us 
year  after  year  as  brilliantly  as  he  had  ever  lectured  at  Oxford, 
gave  his  library  to  the  University  with  a  large  sum  for  its  in- 
crease, lent  his  aid  very  quietly,  but  none  the  less  effectually, 
to  needy  and  meritorious  students,  and  steadily  refused  then, 
as  he  has  ever  since  done,  and  now  does,  to  accept  a  dollar  of 
compensation.  Nothing  ever  gave  Mr.  Cornell  more  encour- 
agement than  this  :  for  "Goldwin,"  as  he  called  him,  in  his 
Quaker  way,  there  was  always  a  very  warm  corner  in  his  heart. 
It  is  pleasing  to  note,  as  I  write  these  lines,  that  the  very 
newspapers  which  howled  after  Mr.  Cornell  during  all  this 
period  as  a  "jobber,"  "  a  land-grabber,"  and  "a  land-thief," 
are  now  denouncing  Cornell  University  for  spending  its  money 
in  paying  a  salary  to  Goldwin  Smith,  declaring  that  such  a 
misuse  of  funds  should  stop,  and  that  he  should  be  discharged. 

Mr.  Cornell  also  found  much  pleasure  in  many  of  the  lec- 
ture courses  established  at  the  opening  of  the  University.  For 
Professor  Agassiz  he  formed  a  warm  friendship,  and  their  dis- 
cussions regarding  geological  questions  were  very  interesting, 
eliciting  from  Agassiz  a  striking  tribute  to  Mr.  Cornell's  close- 
ness of  observation  and  sagacity  in  reasoning.  The  lectures 
on  history  by  Goldwin  Smith  and  on  literature  by  James  Rus- 


Ezra   Cornell.  31 

sell  Lowell,  George  William  Curtis,  and  Bayard  Taylor  he  also 
enjoyed  greatly. 

The  scientific  collections  and  apparatus  of  various  sorts 
gave  him  constant  pleasure.  I  had  sent  from  England,  France, 
and  Germany  a  large  number  of  charts,  models,  and  pieces  of 
philosophical  apparatus,  and,  regarding  some  of  them,  had 
thought  it  best  to  make  careful  explanations  to  him,  in  order 
to  justify  so  large  an  expenditure  ;  but  I  soon  found  this  un- 
necessary. His  shrewd  mind  enabled  him  to  understand  any 
piece  of  apparatus  quickly,  and  to  appreciate  it  fully.  I  have 
never  had  to  deal  with  any  man  whose  instinct  in  such  matters 
was  more  true.  If  a  book  or  scientific  specimen  or  piece  of 
apparatus  was  necessary  to  the  proper  work  of  a  department, 
he  could  easily  be  made  to  see  it ;  and  then  it  must  come  to  us, 
no  matter  at  what  cost.  Like  the  great  prince  of  navigators  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  he  might  be  described  as  a  man  "who 
had  the  taste  for  great  things" — "qui  tenia  gusto  en  cosas 
grandest  He  felt  that  the  University  was  to  be  great,  and  he 
took  his  measures  accordingly.  He  was  generally,  among  his 
colleagues,  thought  very  sanguine  ;  but,  when  he  declared  that 
the  University  should  yet  have  an  endowment  of  three  mil- 
lions, he  was  regarded  by  most  of  them  as  a  mere  dreamer. 

I  feel  bound  to  say  that  I  have  never  known  a  man  more 
entirely  unselfish.  I  have  seen  him,  when  his  wealth  was 
counted  in  millions,  devote  it  so  generously  to  university  ob- 
jects that  he  felt  it  necessary  to  stint  himself  in  some  matters 
of  personal  comfort.  When  urged  to  sell  a  portion  of  the 
University  land  at  a  sacrifice,  in  order  to  better  our  founda- 
tions, he  answered  in  substance,  "Don't  let  us  do  that  yet :  I 
will  wear  my  old  hat  and  coat  a  little  longer,  and  let  you  have 
a  little  more  money  from  my  own  pocket. ' ' 

This  feeling  seemed  never  diminished,  even  under  the 
worst  opposition.  He  "kept  the  faith,"  no  matter  who  op- 
posed him. 

One  gentleman,   eminent  and  justly   respected    for  great 


V 


y 


32  My  Reminiscences  of 

abilities  shown  in  his  professorship  at  one  of  the  oldest  of  the 
eastern  Universities,  published  a  treatise,  which  was  widely 
circulated,  to  prove  that  the  main  ideas  on  which  the  Univer- 
sity is  based  were  utterly  impracticable,  and  especially  that  the 
presentation  of  various  courses  of  instruction  suited  to  young 
men  of  various  aims  and  tastes,  with  liberty  of  choice  between 
these,  was  preposterous.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this 
same  eminent  gentleman  was  afterward  led  to  adopt  this  same 
"impracticable"  policy  at  his  own  University.  Others  of 
almost  equal  eminence  insisted  that  to  give  advanced  scientific 
and  technical  instruction  in  the  same  institution  with  classical 
instruction,  was  folly  ;  and  these  gentlemen  were  probably  not 
converted  until  the  plan  was  adopted  at  English  Cambridge. 
Others  still  insisted  that  an  institution  not  belonging  to  any 
one  religious  sect,  must  be  "godless,"  would  not  be  patronized, 
and  could  not  succeed.  Their  eyes  were  opened  later  by  the 
sight  of  men  and  women  of  the  different  Christian  denomina- 
tions  pressing  forward  at  Cornell  University  to  contribute 
sums,  which,  in  the  aggregate,  amounted  to  nearly  as  much  as 
the  original  endowment. 

He  earned  the  blessing  of  those  who,  not  having  seen, 
have  yet  believed  :  though  he  did  not  live  long  enough  to  see 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  University  thus  force  their 
way  to  recognition  and  adoption  by  those  who  had  most  strong- 
ly opposed  them,  his  faith  remained  undiminished  to  the  end 
of  his  life. 

But  the  opposition  to  his  work  developed  into  worse 
shapes  ;  many  leading  journals  in  the  State,  when  not  openly 
hostile  to  him,  were  cold  and  indifferent,  and  some  of  them 
were  steadily  abusive.  This  led  to  a  rather  wide-spread  feeling 
that  "where  there  is  smoke,  there  must  be  fire,"  and  we  who 
knew  the  purity  of  his  purpose,  his  unselfishness,  his  sturdy 
honesty,  labored  long  in  vain  against  this  feeling. 

I  regret  to  say  that  some  eminent  men  connected  with  im- 
portant Universities  in  the  country,  showed  far  too  much  read- 


Ezra   Cornell.  33 

iness  to  acquiesce  in  this  unfavorable  view  of  our  Founder. 
From  hardly  one  of  our  sister  institutions  came  any  word  of 
cheer,  and  from  some  -of  them  came  most  bitter  attacks,  not 
only  upon  the  system  adopted  in  the  new  University,  but  upon 
Mr.  Cornell  himself.  But  his  friends  were  more  afflicted,  by 
far,  than  he  :  all  this  opposition  only  served  to  strengthen  his 
faith.  As  to  this  effect  upon  him,  I  recall  one  or  two  quaint 
examples.  At  the  darkest  period  in  the  history  of  the  Univer- 
sity, I  mentioned  to  him  that  a  remarkably  fine  collection  of 
mathematical  books  was  offered  us  for  five  thousand  dollars. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances  he  would  have  bought  it  for  us 
at  once  ;  but  this,  at  that  moment,  when  he  was  almost  crush- 
ed under  burdens  already  assumed,  would  not  have  been 
advised  by  any  of  his  friends,  and  he  quietly  said,  "Some- 
where there  is  a  man  walking  about  who  wants  to  give  us  this 
five  thousand  dollars."  I  am  glad  to  say  that  his  faith  was 
soon  justified  ;  such  a  man  appeared, — a  man  who  was  glad  to 
give  the  required  sum  as  a  testimony  to  his  belief  in  Mr.  Cor- 
nell's integrity. 

Another  little  example  may  be  given  as  typical  :  near  the 
close  of  a  birthday  party  given  at  one  of  the  college  buildings, 
a  pleasant  social  dance  sprang  up  among  the  younger  people — 
students  from  the  University  and  young  ladies  from  the  vil- 
lage. This  brought  a  very  severe  protest  from  sundry  clergy- 
men of  the  place,  declaring  dancing  to  be  "destructive  of  vital 
godliness."  No  answer  was  ever  made  to  this  protest ;  but  it 
was  noticed  that,  at  every  social  gathering  on  "Founder's 
Day"  afterward,  as  long  as  Mr.  Cornell  lived,  he  had  arrange- 
ments made  for  dancing.  I  never  knew  a  man  more  easily  led 
by  right  reason,  but  I  never  knew  one  more  unmoved  by  cant 
or  dogmatism. 

To  most  attacks  upon  him  in  the  newspapers,  he  neither 
made  nor  suggested  any  reply  ;  but  one  or  two  which  were  es- 
pecially virulent  he  answered  simply  and  conclusively.  This 
had  no  effect,  of  course,  in  stopping  the  attacks,  but  it  had  one 


34  My  Reminiscences  of 

effect,  at  which  the  friends  of  the  University  rejoiced  :  it 
bound  his  'old  associates  to  him  all  the  more  closely,  and  led 
them  to  support  him  all  the  more  vigorously.  When  a  paper 
in  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  western  New  York  had  been  es- 
pecially abusive,  one  of  Mr.  Cornell's  old  friends  living  in  that 
city  wrote,  "I  know  that  the  charges  recently  published  are 
utterly  untrue,  but  I  am  not  skilled  in  newspaper  controversy, 
so  I 'will  simply  add  to  what  I  have  already  given  to  the  Uni- 
versity a  special  gift  of  thirty  thousand  dollars,  which  will  tes- 
tify to  my  townsmen  here,  and,  perhaps  to  the  public  at  large, 
my  confidence  in  Mr.  Cornell." 

Such  was  the  way  of  Hiram  Sibley.  Upon  another  attack, 
especially  violent,  from  the  organ  of  one  of  the  denomination- 
al colleges,  another  old  friend  of  Mr.  Cornell  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  State,  a  prominent  member  of  the  religious  body 
which  this  paper  represented,  sent  his  check  for  several  thou- 
sand dollars,  to  be  used  for  the  purchase  of  books  for  the 
Library,  and  to  show  confidence  in  Mr.  Cornell  by  deeds  as 
well  as  words. 

Vile  as  these  attacks  were,  worse  remained  behind.  A 
local  politician,  who  had  been  sent  to  the  Legislature  from  the 
district  where  the  "  People's  College"  had  lived  its  short  life, 
prepared,  with  pettifogging  ability,  a  long  speech,  to  show 
that  the  foundation  of  Cornell  University,  Mr.  Cornell's  en- 
dowment of  it,  and  his  contract  to  locate  the  lands  for  it,  were 
parts  of  a  great  cheat  and  swindle.  This  thesis,  developed  in 
all  the  moods  and  tenses  of  abuse  before  the  Legislature,  was 
next  day  published  at  length  in  the  leading  journals  of  the 
metropolis,  and  echoed  throughout  the  Union.  The  time  for 
these  attacks  was  skillfully  chosen  :  the  Credit  Mobilier  and 
other  schemes  had  been  revealed  at  Washington,  and  every- 
body was  only  too  ready  to  believe  any  charge  against  any- 
body. That  Mr.  Cornell  had  been  known  for  forty  years  as  an 
honest  man  seemed  to  go  for  nothing. 

The  enemies  of  the  University,  especially  those  acting  in 


Ezra   Cornell. 


35 


the  supposed  interest  of  the  various  denominational  colleges, 
were  prompt  to  support  the  charges,  and  they  found  some  ech- 
oes even  among  those  who  were  benefited  by  his  generosity, — 
even  among  the  students  themselves.  At  this  I  felt  it  my  duty 
to  call  the  whole  body  of  students  together,  and  in  a  careful 
speech  to  explain  Mr.  Cornell's  transactions,  answering  the 
charges  fully.  This  speech,  though  spread  through  the  State, 
could  evidently  do  but  little  in  righting  the  wrong ;  but  it 
brought  to  me  what  I  shall  always  feel  a  great  honor — a  share 
in  the  abuse  showered  mainly  on  him. 

Very  characteristic  was  Mr.  Cornell's  conduct  under  this 
outrage.  That  same  faith  in  justice,  that  same  patience  under 
wrong,  which  he  always  showed,  was  more  evident  than  ever. 

On  the  morning  after  the  attack  in  the  Legislature  had 
been  blazoned  in  all  the  leading  newspapers — in  the  early 
hours,  and  after  a  sleepless  night — I  heard  the  rattle  of  gravel 
against  my  window  panes.  On  rising  I  found  Mr.  Cornell 
standing  below  :  he  was  serene  and  cheerful,  and  had  evidently 
taken  the  long  walk  up  the  hill  to  quiet  my  irritation.  His 
first  words  were  a  jocose  prelude  :  the  bells  of  the  University, 
which  were  then  chimed  at  six  o'clock,  were  ringing  merrily, 
and  he  called  out,  "Come  down  here  and  listen  to  the  chimes  ; 
I  have  found  a  spot  where  you  can  hear  them  directly  with  one 
ear,  and  their  echo  with  the  other." 

When  I  had  come  down,  we  first  investigated  the  echo  of 
the  chime,  which  had  really  aroused  his  interest ;  then  he  said 
seriously,  "Don't  make  yourself  unhappy  over  this  matter — it 
will  turn  out  to  be  a  good  thing  for  the  University  ;  I  have 
long  foreseen  that  this  attack  must  come,  but  have  feared  that 
it  would  come  after  my  death,  when  the  facts  would  be  forgot- 
ten, and  the  transactions  little  understood  :  I  am  glad  that  the 
charges  are  made  now,  while  I  am  here  to  answer  them."  We 
then  discussed  the  matter,  and  it  was  agreed  that  he  should 
telegraph  and  write  Governor  Dix,  asking  him  to  appoint  an 
investigating  committee,  of  which  the  majority  should  be  from 


36  My  Reminiscences  oj 

the  political  party  opposed  to  his  own.  This  was  done  :  the 
committee  was  composed  of  Horatio  Seymour,  formerly  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  and  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States,  William  A.  Wheeler,  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States,  and  John  D.  Van  Buren,  all  three  men  of 
the  highest  standing,  and  two  of  them  politically  opposed  to 
Mr.  Cornell. 

During  the  long  investigation  which  ensued  at  New  York 
and  in  Ithaca,  he  never  lost  his  patience,  though  at  times  sore- 
ly tried.  Various  schemers  who  had  been  disappointed  in 
bending  him  to  their  purposes,  among  these  one  person  who 
had  not  been  allowed  to  make  an  undue  profit  out  of  the  Uni- 
versity lands,  and  another  who  had  been  allowed  to  depart 
from  a  professorship  on  account  of  hopeless  incompetency, 
were  the  main  witnesses.  The  onslaught  was  led  by  the  per- 
son who  made  the  attack  in  the  Legislature,  and  he  had  raked 
together  a  mass  of  half-truths  and  surmises  ;  but  the  evidence 
on  Mr  Cornell's  side  consisted  of  a  complete  exhibition  of  all 
the  facts  and  documents.  The  unanimous  report  of  the  com- 
mittee was  all  that  his  warmest  friends  could  desire,  and  its 
recommendations  regarding  the  management  of  the  fund  were 
such  as  Mr.  Cornell  had  long  wished,  but  which  he  had  hardly 
dared  ask.     The  result  was  a  complete  triumph  for  him. 

Yet  the  attacks  continued  :  the  same  paper  which  had 
been  so  prominent  in  sounding  them  through  the  western  part 
of  the  State  continued  them  as  before,  and,  almost  to  the  very 
day  of  his  death,  assailed  him  periodically  as  a  "land  jobber," 
"land  grabber,"  and  "land  thief."  But  he  took  these  foul 
attacks  by  tricky  declaimers  and  his  vindication  by  three  of 
the  most  eminent  fellow-citizens  with  the  same  serenity.  That 
there  was  in  him  a  profound  contempt  for  the  wretched  crea- 
tures who  assailed  him  and  imputed  to'  him  motives  as  vile  as 
their  own,  can  hardly  be  doubted  ;  yet,  though  I  was  with  him 
constantly  during  this  period,  I  never  heard  him  speak  harshly 
of  them  ;  nor  could  I  ever  see   that  this  injustice  diminished 


Ezra   Cornell. 


37 


his  good  will  toward  his  fellow-men  and  his  desire  to  benefit 
them. 

At  the  very  time  when  these  attacks  were  at  their  worst, 
he  was  giving  especial  thought  to  the  problem  of  bringing  ed- 
ucation at  the  University  within  reach  of  young  men  of  good 
ability  and  small  means.  I  am  quite  within  bounds  in  saying 
that  he  gave  an  hour  to  thought  upon  this  for  every  minute  he 
gave  to  thought  upon  the  attacks  of  his  enemies. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  he  began  building  his  beau- 
tiful house  near  the  University  ;  and  in  this  he  showed  some  of 
his  peculiarities.  He  took  much  pains  to  secure  a  tasteful 
plan,  and  some  of  the  ideas  embodied  in  it  evidently  resulted 
from  his  study  of  beautiful  country-houses  in  England.  Char- 
acteristic of  him  also  was  his  way  of  carrying  on  the  work. 
Having  visited  several  quarries  in  various  parts  of  the  State, 
in  order  to  choose  the  best  possible  building-stone,  he  em- 
ployed some  German  stone-carvers  who  had  recently  left  work 
upon  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne,  brought  them  to  Ithaca,  and 
allowed  them  to  work  on  with  no  interference  save  from  the 
architect :  if  they  gave  a  month  or  more  to  the  carving  of  a 
single  capital  or  corbel,  he  made  no  remonstrance.  When  he 
had  thus  secured  the  best  stone-work,  he  selected  the  best 
seasoned  oak  and  walnut  and  called  skillful  carpenters  from 
England. 

In  thus  going  abroad  for  artisans  there  was  no  want  of 
fidelity  to  his  own  countrymen,  nor  was  there  any  alloy  of  per- 
sonal vanity  in  his  motives.  His  purpose  evidently  was  to 
erect  a  house  which  should  be  as  perfect  a  specimen  of  the 
builder's  art  as  he  could  make  it,  and  therefore  useful,  as  an 
example  of  thoroughly  good  work,  to  the  local  workmen. 

In  connection  with  this,  another  incident  throws  light  up- 
on his  characteristics.  Above  the  front  entrance  of  the  house 
was  a  scroll  or  ribbon  in  stone,  evidently  intended  for  a  name 
or  motto.  The  words  carved  there  were,  "True  and  Firm." 
It  is  a  curious  evidence  of  the  petty  criticism  which  beset  him 


38  My  Reminiscences  of 

in  those  days,  that  this  motto  was  at  times  cited  as  a  proof  of 
his  vain-glory.  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  relieve  any  mind  sensi- 
tive on  this  point,  and  to  vindicate  the  truth  of  history  by  say- 
ing that  I,  myself,  placed  the  motto  there.  Calling  his  atten- 
tion one  day  to  the  scroll  and  the  need  of  an  inscription,  I 
suggested  a  translation  of  the  old  German  motto,  "  Tren  und 
Fesf*1  ;  and,  as  he  made  no  objection,  I  wrote  it  out  for  the 
stone-cutters,  but  told  Mr.  Cornell  that  there  were  people,  per- 
haps, who  might  translate  the  second  word  "obstinate." 

The  point  of  this  lay  in  the  fact  which  Mr.  Cornell  knew 
very  well,  that  he  was  frequently  charged  with  obstinacy.  Yet 
an  obstinate  man,  in  the  evil  sense  of  that  word,  he  was  not. 
For  several  years  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  discuss  a  multitude  of 
questions  with  him,  and  reasonableness  was  one  of  his  most 
striking  characteristics  :  he  was  one  of  those  very  rare  strong 
men  who  recognize  adequately  their  own  limitations.  True, 
when  he  had  finally  made  up  his  mind  in  a  matter  fully  within 
his  own  province,  he  remained  firm  ;  but  I  have  known  very 
few  men  wealthy,  strong,  successful,  as  he  was,  so  free  from 
the  fault  of  thinking  that,  because  they  are  good  judges  of  one 
class  of  questions,  they  are  equally  good  in  all  others.  One 
mark  of  an  obstinate  man  is  the  announcement  of  opinions  up- 
on subjects  regarding  which  his  experience  and  previous  train- 
ing give  him  little  or  no  means  of  judging.  This  was  not  at 
all  the  case  with  Mr.  Cornell.  When  questions  arose  regarding 
internal  university  management,  or  courses  of  study,  or  the 
choice  of  professors,  or  plans  for  their  accommodation,  he  was 
never  quick  in  announcing  or  tenacious  in  holding  an  opinion. 
There  was  no  purse  pride  about  him.  He  evidently  did  not 
believe  that  his  success  in  building  up  a  fortune  had  made  him 
an  expert  or  judge  in  questions  to  which  he  had  never  paid 
special  attention. 

During  the  last  year  or  two  of  his  life,  I  saw  not  so  much 
of  him  as  during  several  previous  years.  He  had  become 
greatly  interested  in  various  railway  projects,  having  as  their 


Ezra    Cornell.  39 

purpose  the  connection  of  Ithaca,  as  a  University  town,  with 
the  State  at  large  ;  and  he  threw  himself  into  these  plans  with 
great  energy.  His  course  in  this  was  prompted  by  a  public 
spirit  as  large  and  pure  as  that  which  had  led  him  to  found  the 
University.  When,  at  the  suggestion  of  sundry  friends,  I  ven- 
tured to  remonstrate  with  him  very  gently  against  going  so 
largely  into  these  railway  enterprises  at  his  time  of  life,  he 
said,  "I  shall  live  twenty  years  longer,  and  make  a  million  of 
dollars  more  for  the  University  endowment."  Alas!  within 
six  months  from  that  day  he  lay  dead  in  the  midst  of  many 
broken  hopes.  His  plans,  which,  under  other  circumstances, 
would  have  been  judged  wise,  seemed  wrecked  by  the  financial 
crisis  which  had  just  come  upon  the  country  :  fortunately  the 
final  result  was  not  so  injurious  as  was  at  one  time  feared. 

In  his  last  hours  I  visited  him  frequently.  His  mind  re- 
mained clear,  and  he  showed  his  old  freedom  from  any  fault- 
finding spirit,  though  evidently  oppressed  by  business  cares 
and  bodily  suffering.  His  serenity  was  especially  evident  as  I 
sat  with  him  the  night  before  his  death,  and  I  can  never  forget 
the  placidity  of  his  countenance,  both  then  and  on  the  next 
morning,  when  all  was  ended. 

Something  more  should  be  said  here,  perhaps,  regarding 
Mr.  Cornell's  political  ideas.  In  the  Legislature  he  was  a  firm 
Republican,  but  as  free  as  possible  from  anything  like  partisan 
bigotry.  Party  ties  in  local  matters  sat  lightly  upon  him.  He 
spoke  in  public  very  little,  and  took  far  greater  interest  in  pub- 
lic improvement  than  in  party  advantage.  With  many  of  his 
political  opponents  his  relations  were  most  friendly.  For  such 
Democrats  as  Hiram  Sibley,  the  late  Erastus  Brooks,  and  Wil- 
liam Kelley,  he  had  the  deepest  respect  and  admiration.  He 
cared  little  for  popular  clamor  on  any  subject,  braving  it  more 
than  once  by  his  votes  in  the  Legislature.  He  was  evidently 
willing  to  take  any  risk  involved  in  waiting  for  the  sober  sec- 
ond thought  of  the  people.  I  again  declare  him  the  most 
unselfish  man   I  have  ever  known,    and  he  was  as  free  from 


4-0  My  Reminiscences  of 

ordinary  ambition  as  from  selfishness.  When  there  was  a  call 
from  several  parts  of  the  State  for  his  nomination  as  Governor, 
he  said  quietly,  ' '  I  prefer  to  do  work  for  which  I  am  better 
fitted." 

There  was  in  his  ordinary  bearing  a  certain  austerity  and 
in  his  conversation  an  abruptness  which  interfered  somewhat 
with  his  popularity.  A  student  once  said  to  me,  "If  Mr  Cor- 
nell would  simply  stand  upon  his  pedestal  as  our  "Honored 
Founder",  and  let  us  hurrah  for  him,  that  would  please  us 
mightily  ;  but,  when  he  comes  into  the  laboratory  and  asks  us 
gruffly,  "What  are  you  wasting  your  time  at,  now?"  we  don't 
like  him  so  well."  The  fact  on  which  this  remark  was  based 
was  that  Mr.  Cornell  liked  greatly  to  walk  quietly  through  the 
laboratories  and  drafting-rooms,  to  note  the  work.  Now  and 
then,  when  he  saw  a  student  doing  something  which  especially 
interested  him,  he  was  evidently  anxious,  as  he  was  wont  to 
say,  "to  see  what  the  fellow  is  made  of,"  and  he  would  fre- 
quently put  some  provoking  question,  liking  nothing  better 
than  to  receive  an  equally  pithy  answer.  Of  his  kind  feelings 
towards  students  I  could  say  much  :  he  was  not  inclined  to  cod- 
dle them,  but  was  ever  ready  to  help  any  deserving  young  man. 

Despite  his  apparent  austerity,  he  was  singularly  free  from 
harshness  in  his  judgments,  even  regarding  his  assailants. 
There  were  times  when  he  would  have  been  justified  in  out- 
bursts of  bitterness  against  those  who  attacked  him  in  ways  so 
foul  and  maligned  him  in  ways  so  vile  ;  but  I  never  heard  any 
bitter  reply  from  him.  In  his  politics  there  was  never  a  drop 
of  bitterness.  Only  once  or  twice  did  I  ever  hear  him  allude 
to  any  conduct  which  displeased  him,  and  then  his  comments 
were  rather  playful  than  otherwise  :  on  one  occasion,  when  he 
had  written  to  a  gentleman  of  great  wealth  and  deserved  re- 
pute as  a  philanthropist,  asking  him  to,  join  in  carrying  the 
burden  of  the  land  locations,  and  had  received  an  unfavorable 
answer,  he  made  a  remark  which  seemed  to  me  rather  harsh. 
To  this  I  replied,  "Mr.  Cornell,  Mr.  is  not  at  all  in  fault  ; 


Ezra  Cornell.  41 

he  does  not  understand  the  question  as  you  do ;  everybody 
knows  that  he  is  a  very  liberal  man."  "O",  said  Mr.  Cornell, 
u  it  is  easy  enough  to  be  liberal  ;  the  only  hard  part  is  drawing 
the  check." 

Of  his  intellectual  characteristics,  foresight  was  the  most 
remarkable.  Of  all  men  in  the  country  who  had  to  do  with 
the  college  land  grant  of  1862,  he  alone  had  foreknowledge  of 
the  possibilities  involved  and  courage  to  make  them  actual. 

Clearness  of  thought  on  all  matters  to  which  he  gave  his 
attention  was  another  striking  characteristic  ;  hence,  whenever 
he  put  anything  upon  paper,  it  was  lucid  and  cogent.  There 
seems  at  times  in  his  writings  some  of  the  clear,  quaint 
shrewdness  so  well  known  in  Abraham  Lincoln  :  very  striking 
examples  of  this  are  to  be  found  in  his  legislative  speeches,  in 
his  address  at  the  opening  of  the  University,  and  in  his  letters. 

Among  his  moral  characteristics,  his  truthfulness,  persist- 
ence, courage  and  fortitude  were  most  strongly  marked.  These 
qualities  made  him  a  man  of  peace.  He  regarded  life  as  too 
short  to  be  wasted  in  quarrels  ;  his  steady  rule,  throughout  his 
business  life,  was  never  to  begin  a  lawsuit  or  have  anything  to 
do  with  one,  if  it  could  be  avoided.  That  hysterical  joy  in 
litigation  and  squabble,  which  has  been  the  weakness  of  so 
many  men  claiming  to  be  strong,  and  the  especial  curse  of  so 
many  American  Churches,  Colleges,  Universities,  and  other 
public  organizations,  had  no  place  in  his  strong,  tolerant  na- 
ture. He  never  sought  to  punish  the  sins  of  any  one  in  the 
courts  or  to  win  the  repute  of  an  uncompromising  fighter. 
In  this  peaceable  disposition  he  was  prompted  not  only  by  his 
greatest  moral  quality — his  desire  to  aid  his  fellow-men, — but 
by  his  greatest  intellectual  quality — his  foresight  :  for  he  knew 
well  "the  glorious  uncertainty  of  the  law."  He  was  a  builder, 
not  a  gladiator. 

There  resulted  from  these  qualities  an  equanimity  which  I 

have  never  seen  equalled.     When  his  eldest  son  had  been  elect- 

< 

ed  to  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the  State  Assembly,  and 
had  been   placed,    evidently,    on   the   way   to  the  Governor's 


42  My  Reminiscences  of 

chair — afterward  attained — though  it  must  have  gratified  such 
a  father,  he  never  made  any  reference  to  it  in  my  hearing  ; 
and,  when  the  body  of  his  favorite  grandson,  a  most  winning 
and  promising  boy,  killed  instantly  by  a  terrible  accident,  was 
brought  into  his  presence,  though  his  heart  must  have  bled, 
his  calmness  seemed  almost  superhuman. 

His  religious  ideas  were  such  as  many  excellent  people 
would  hardly  approve.  He  had  been  born  into  the  Society  of 
Friends,  and  their  quietness,  simplicity,  freedom  from  noisy 
activity,  and  devotion  to  the  public  good,  attached  him  to 
them.  But  his  was  not  a  bigoted  attachment ;  he  went  freely 
to  various  churches,  aiding  them  without  distinction  of  sect, 
though  finally  he  settled  into  a  steady  attendance  at  the  Unitari- 
an Church  in  Ithaca,  for  the  pastor  of  which  he  conceived  a  great 
respect  and  liking.  He  was  never  inclined  to  say  much  about 
religion  ;  but,  in  our  talks,  he  was  wont  to  quote  with  approv- 
al from  Pope's  "Universal  Prayer" — and  especially  the  lines, 

"Teach  me  to  feel  another's  woe, 

To  hide  the  fault  I  see  ; 
The  mercy  I  to  others  show, 

That  mercy  show  to  me.  " 

On  the  mere  letter  of  Scripture  he  dwelt  little  :  and,  while 
he  never  obtruded  opinions  that  might  shock  any  person,  and 
was  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  scoffing  or  irreverence,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  discriminate  between  parts  of  our  Sacred 
Books  which  he  considered  as  simply  legendary  and  parts 
which  were  to  him  pregnant  with  Eternal  Truth. 

His  religion  seemed  to  take  shape  in  a  deeply  reverent  feel- 
ing toward  his  Creator,  and  in  a  constant  desire  to  improve  the 
condition  of  his  fellow-creatures.  He  was  never  surprised  or 
troubled  by  anything  which  any  other  human  being  believed 
pr  did  not  believe  :  of  intolerance  he  was  utterly  incapable. 
He  sought  no  reputation  as  a  philanthropist,  cared,  little  for  ap- 
proval, and  nothing  for  applause  ;  but  I  can  say  of  him,  with- 
out reserve,  that,  during  all  the  years  I  knew  him,  "he  went 
about  doing  good. " 


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